


"it is the ground under their feet that suffers"

by orphan_account



Series: BBS drabbles [10]
Category: Banana Bus Squad
Genre: Boys In Love, Cuddling & Snuggling, Insomnia, Literal Sleeping Together, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Mental Instability, Not Beta Read, Reading, Watching Someone Sleep, allusions to past trauma, it's 3 am we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-30
Updated: 2020-06-30
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:01:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 872
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24994300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Of the pair, Anthony’s insomnia is worse.It’s been years now, and reading every night has become part of his routine.Currently, his routine is obscured. He peers at his book over the top of Scotty’s hair, petting gently down his arm.Scotty is lying sideways on their bed, head resting on Anthony’s chest. His messy hair tickles Anthony’s neck as he shifts in his sleep.He suffers from insomnia, too.[title is a quote from the Hardy Boys... it becomes relevant]
Relationships: Anthony | BigJigglyPanda/Scotty | fourzer0seven
Series: BBS drabbles [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/748089
Comments: 1
Kudos: 19





	"it is the ground under their feet that suffers"

**Author's Note:**

> this fandom is really falling apart, huh? we don't support pedos or groomers in this household, so you won't ever see lui or mini featured in my fics again. 
> 
> if you need a break from all of that, I have some pretty soft fics planned in the next few days, getting away from the frankly absurd amount of porn I've written.
> 
> in the meantime, here's some somft boys dealing with their trauma together. somft

Of the pair, Anthony’s insomnia is worse.

It’s been a near-constant in his life, only spurred on by traumatic childhood events. It doesn’t matter if he’s home in his bed, whether he knows he’s safe. He rarely sleeps, and the slightest of sounds jolts him awake, hand going straight for the light. His mind runs wild, the child that he never got to be crying in fear.

Anthony lies in the dark for hours sometimes, listening to the silence, unable to silence the itch in the back of his mind. Most of the time, he reads. Anything. Everything. It takes him away, so much calmer than the anxiety-inducing pit of his phone, and eventually his mind quiets enough that he falls asleep.

It’s been years now, and reading every night has become part of his routine.

Currently, his routine is obscured. He peers at his book over the top of Scotty’s hair, petting gently down his arm.

Scotty is lying sideways on their bed, head resting on Anthony’s chest. His messy hair tickles Anthony’s neck as he shifts in his sleep.

He suffers from insomnia, too.

His stems from nightmares rather than paranoia. He falls asleep easily and jerks violently awake. He curls close to Anthony’s broad, warm body until he feels safe enough to fall back to sleep.

Anthony finds it helps to read aloud to him. Poetry. Mysteries. Action. Books they’ve read before, read together, things Scotty already knows.

Anthony always keeps a Hardy Boys books on the bedside table. The series is comforting, childish and familiar to both of them. There are certain nights, the worst nights, when Scott wakes up gripping his throat and screaming. When he’s calm and his breathing has slowed, he curls up in Anthony’s arms and lets himself be read to, often for hours on end. He falls asleep quietly, freed from whatever plagued him. On those nights, Frank and Joe are the only characters familiar enough to be comforting.

He’s memorised passages. There are entire pages he knows by heart. It’s comforting for Anthony, too, to be able to set the book down and wrap both arms around Scott, cover him with his own body, as if hoping to shield him, and whisper the lines softly into his hair.

It’s been almost a year now since he’s needed it, and oh, what a relief it is to see him heal.

Tonight, Scott barely woke. A quick start. “No!” His eyes snapped open, and he laid on his back for a moment longer, settling as he stared up at the ceiling. When his breathing had evened, he rolled closer, resting his head over Anthony’s heart and meeting his gaze for a moment before his eyes drifted softly closed. Anthony began reading out loud, and Scotty was asleep before he could even reach the end of the poem. As his breathing grew quiet again, drifting like the Sahara breeze over Anthony’s collarbones, he let his voice fade into nothingness.

His hand is nestled against the warm swell of Scotty’s waist, and his fingers are tangled limply in Anthony’s t-shirt. After a few more pages, his wrist begins to cramp from holding the book high enough to see, and when he drops it into his lap, the bottom two paragraphs are hidden behind Scotty’s pale hair.

He sets the book aside and just watches Scotty.

As Anthony watches, his eyebrows draw together into a sharp ‘v’ before his expression relaxes again. He nuzzles his face into Anthony’s chest, huffing in a deep sigh, and the corner of his mouth twitches up into a vague smile.

Anthony’s eyes trace along his profile almost delicately, following the slope of his nose; the smile lines surrounding his eyes, relaxed in sleep; the few spots darkened by sun, dotting the arcs of his cheekbones; the curve of his lips, twitching almost unnoticeably as the tender skin brushes up against the fabric of Anthony’s shirt. He’s memorised every detail of Scott’s face. He’d know him blind.

He follows the line of his neck and shoulder and along his arm. The loose t-shirt he’s asleep in is sliding down his shoulder, twisted from the way he’d rolled to expose tan skin and the thick wire of muscle rolling down his arm. He looks relaxed, sprawled across the bed with his head tucked into Anthony’s neck. His fingers curl possessively in the hem of Scott’s shirt.

To Anthony, he is the best of everything. Better than he has any right to. He’s still awed at even the chance to be with him, even after so many years.

He’d kept Anthony company through the seemingly unending nights just after they’d gotten together, when he barely slept a wink, lucky to catch an hour in bits and pieces. Three years married, and Scott’s never said a word about lights on at all hours of the night. He stays with Anthony when he lies in bed night after night and tries to find something strong enough to keep his demons at bay, anything to keep his brain quiet long enough to sleep.

When he looks at Scott, everything else fades away.

Anthony’s fingers curl more securely around his waist. Eyes fluttering closed, he dreams of Scott.


End file.
